Evaluating RIS Server Hardware Requirements

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

In general, RIS servers must meet the requirements of the product version of the Windows Server 2003 family you install. However, you are encouraged to increase those requirements to more efficiently support RIS image deployment in your organization.

You need to have at least two disk partitions available on the RIS server, one for booting the server operating system and another to contain the directory structure for the client operating system images. You need to allocate an entire separate partition to the RIS server directory tree because you cannot install RIS on the same drive as the system volume. Also, you need to format the RIS partition as NTFS.

The partition containing the images must be large enough to store one or more operating system images, depending on your requirements. A CD-based image for Windows XP Professional is 650 MB–700 MB in size. Most organizations store more than one operating system image to meet the needs of different clients.

For up-to-date hardware compatibility information, see the Windows Catalog link on the Web Resources page at: https://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/webresources.

For this part of your planning process, use job aid "Planning for RIS Servers" (ACIRIS_02.doc) on the Windows Server 2003 Deployment Kit companion CD (or see "Planning for RIS Servers" on the Web at https://www.microsoft.com/reskit) to record whether you require an upgrade to RIS server hardware. Also indicate the personnel you want to assign to the task.